Shabbat School

Kadima Shabbat School meets two Saturday mornings per month from mid-September through mid-June - the first, third, and occasional fifth Saturday mornings of the month from 9:30 am to 12 noon followed by a community lunch and optional afternoon activities for all ages. During Kadima Shabbat School, we offer interactive, community-based learning for young people in mixed-age learning cohorts from newborns (with their adults) through 8th grade. Beginning in 3rd grade, students also begin participating in Tuesday School.

Students spend the first part of Shabbat School in age cohorts of two combined grade levels, and the second part in mixed-cohort, intergenerational chugim,classes about a particular topic that are offered for 4-5 sessions in seasonal blocks throughout the year. Chugim are taught by age-cohort teachers and are open to all Kadima Shabbat School participants, ranging from babies in Nitzotz (the adult-tot class) through grandparents.

Possible chugim might include:

Cooking the Jewish Year

Diving Deep into the rituals of Havdallah

Learning to Lein (Torah reading)

Nature Walks & Jewish Plant Exploration

Creating Our Own Ritual Objects

... and many more!

​Adults gather while young people are in their age cohorts for Saturday morning shacharit services on the first Saturday morning of the month and for adult Jewish empowerment learning on the third Saturday morning of the month.

PRESCHOOL AGENitzotz / Spark| Adult-Tot (0-2 yr olds) $180/yrAdult-tot experience for young ones and their grown-ups focusing on song, story, play, and community building led by skilled, parent-and-young-one-encouraging specialists.

Tal /Dew | Pre-K (3-4 yr olds) $600/yrA vibrant, loving, community focused experience for young people first learning what it is to play together. Can we set up the Shabbat/Saturday table together? Make a play with characters from Jewish tradition ranging from Rose Schneiderman to Sarah Imanu? We sure will find out as we sing, play, and provide tools for Jewish integration in your young person’s world. We incorporate multicultural Jewish vocabulary into our time together - this is a mixture of Hebrew, Yiddish, Ladino, Aramaic, Arabic, and English and encourage the use and normalcy of Jewish vocabulary at home as well.​SCHOOL AGEGeshem / Rain| K - 1st Grades (5-6 yr olds) $750/yrIn Team Geshem, we begin to understand Hebrew as a language - from common vocabulary to the building blocks of the language - the letters and vowel sounds. Team Geshem begins conversations around equity and creates tools for Jewish celebration at home - from vocabulary to knowledge of the calendar to ritual objects and symbols associated with Jewish identity and year-cycle. Students participate and sometimes lead in Kadima community tefillah - using liturgy developed in Kadima that is informed by tradition and evolved for our progressive values.

Shemesh / Sun| 2nd - 3rd Grades (7-8 yr olds) $750/yrIn Team Shemesh, we take on Jewish philosophy and pshat commentary by taking a literalist approach to text from Torah to labor law. To do so, students take a theatrical journey through Torah looking at key Jewish stories with an eye for gender inclusivity. In doing so, students are encouraged to use their own sense of fairness to practice advocating for what they believe in by embodying various characters. In Shemesh, the year cycle learning of Team Geshem is again reiterated. Shemesh team members go through a 3-time process of self-evaluating their community culture rating how they treat each other and their environment. Students participate and sometimes lead in Kadima community tefillah - a reconstructed approach to Jewish world-building through word, movement, and song.

Keshet / Rainbow | 4th - 5th Grades (9-10 yr olds) $750/yrTeam Keshet is responsible for Kadima Schools tzedakah, tzedek, and kesef curriculum looking at money - raising it for the poor, for justice, and for community sustainability, while studying the different opinions regarding the practice in Jewish tradition. They will lead the School community in a fundraising project as well as a tzedakah raising project during the course of the year together. Additionally, Keshet team members explore gender, racial and economic justice issues through the analyzing of norms they encounter in their own lives. Further, students will gain an understanding of the “Jewish bookshelf” and its context in Jewish and world history. Students participate and sometimes lead in Kadima community tefillah - a reconstructed approach to Jewish world-building through word, movement, and song.

Ra’am / Thunder| 6th - 7th Grades (11-12 yr olds) $750/yrTeam Ra’am leads Kadima School’s Yom Iyyun Tzedek and works to locate themselves as individuals and as a community among Jews of the world and the Jewish diaspora. Through this exploration, students will encounter relationships between Jews and other religious communities seeking to understand the context and power dynamics that inform(ed) these relationships then and now. Further, students will encounter questions within the Jewish community relating to internal power and privileging of some Jewish identities over others, as well as looking at identities that intersect with Jewishness. Students participate and sometimes lead in Kadima community tefillah - a reconstructed approach to Jewish world-building through word, movement, and song.